Reeferman1019,
As far as 36in vs 48in, I have a 5ft tank. I have received both opinions in regards to whether to match the length or not. Many have said the 48in would be perfect, a couple others said I should go with the 60in. Thing is, numerous reefers use 60in T5's for a 72in long tank, and seem to do fine with it. If you go with 36in T5's, then you need to take that into consideration with aquascaping and coral placement along the outer 6in of length on either side. Same goes for whether to get 4 or 6 bulb. I know you keep referring to being 12 in height, but that does not matter when considering # of bulbs. What matters is depth (front to back). If you go with 4, then you will have less depth to work with when placing corals than if you have 6. So, any of these combinations are possible, but will affect coral placement and type. The more length and depth of T5's, the more spread out your coral placement can be and the more light demanding corals you can have. Make sense? The great LED vs. T5 debate can go on forever, but I am fairly convinced that the BEST is hybrid solution. It just makes sense. It just sounds like right now, your budget isn't going to allow for hybrid set-up. So, first decide what your goal is for this tank as far as SPS dominant, LPS, softies, mixed reef, etc. Picture how you want it to look, minimal design with a lot of open swimming space on the sides or filled out from front to back and side to side. Then choose b/t LED and T5's. It's your decision, and should be an informed one, with all the info provided on this thread. I think you will find that for your budget, T5's will be the cheapest up front. The reefbreeders suggested by Ron are I think the best compromise b/t price of LED's and quality(little to no disco effect and features provided), but one of these units maybe out of your budget? The videos of some of cheap Chinese black boxes I have seen do have considerable light separation and discoball effect that just ruins it for me personally, but they would be in your budget and do grow corals for sure. My budget is limited too, but maybe not as much as yours, so I am going to do some sort of reefbreeders LED with T5 retrofits. This gets me that hybrid set-up for still under what I would pay for some of the more expensive all LED set-ups like ecotech radions, kessil, or AI. Good luck!
